Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke

Author:Breena Clarke [CLARKE, BREENA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780316032681
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2008-07-28T04:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

THOUGH HAPPY IN her marriage—being tucked within the family—Mary was skittish with Gabriel. And though roundly pleased, Gabriel was tentative with Mary. He worried to be clumsy or cruel unintended. She could not prevent herself from starting at his touch, however gently he approached her.

Mary felt herself marked and unfit. And because nothing in Gabriel’s manner had convinced her otherwise, the new husband and wife shrank from each other.

Respectful, dutiful attention was what a wife owed to her husband, Mary thought. A decent and pleasant man like Gabriel, who was watchful against offense and slow to express anger or vexation, was a good partner.

Gabriel was not used to taking and wrenching congress from women nor did he know the art of pretty persuasion. His experience of the pleasures of women was from several brief, instructional visits to a Georgetown bawdy house with Abraham Pearl. Pearl had felt he was obliged to guide Gabriel in discharging the pent-up energies of youth lest a virtuous girl would suffer for it.

“Boy, do not let your manly humors build up to a pitch. Release them in one way or another,” he’d instructed. Slave or no, Gabriel was a youth come to manhood under Pearl’s influence.

On several occasions, the two shared the time of a bawd who would have them both. She was not averse to well-formed-up Gabriel nor to moneyed Pearl. She enthusiastically and quickly worked them and had her pay. She was not reticent or skittish.

Gabriel was uncertain of how to press his cause with Mary. He did long for her. He was not so much a child that he did not recognize himself. Ought he to grab her and assert a husband’s privilege? The thought of this made him shamefaced and spoiled the feelings of excitement that arose when he came close to her. She was a small, lovely woman. It pained him to sense her heart flutter with trepidation when he approached her, even as his blood cavorted in her presence.

Daniel Joshua, who himself appreciated the womanly attributes of Mary, counseled Gabriel to be forceful. “She will thank you after all is done,” he said.

“I would not frighten or vex her,” Gabriel answered.

“Aye, but this one is no new penny.” Daniel bluntly delivered the observation. “You cannot spoil her.”

“Do you insult my wife, Brother Daniel?” Gabriel bristled at Daniel’s free tongue and prepared to make a physical challenge.

“Make her your wife, boy. Then defend her honor,” the rough man countered, and turned his back.

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